Louis D

No problem. He and Al Nagler of Tele Vue are practically treated as demigods of astronomy gear over here. I wonder who the UK equivalents would be. 🤔

Interesting. So, something like this 23 year old Astro-Physics 155EDFS on CN classifieds might go for half this or less in the UK? I'll have to keep that in mind if I ever decide to go after an AP scope.

Not for Astro-Physics refractors. However, if Roland catches you profiteering by immediately reselling one of his scopes, he won't sell to you ever again. He knows he could ask for much more for each of his scopes, but he doesn't as a matter of principle. He simply sells them for what he considers a reasonable profit to keep his business going.

Dielectric just means multilayer vapor deposition creating a 99% reflectivity (at 45 degrees) mirror. They also don't tarnish like an aluminized or silvered first surface mirror. I like my GSO/Revelation dielectric diagonals quite a bit. I would skip the quartz substrate option, though. I've got both and can't detect any difference. The cheaper diagonals also tend to not be as well made mechanically, I've found. You get flex with binoviewers or heavy eyepieces.

If your pockets are deep enough, the 12.5mm Nikon NAV-HW might be worth a look. Most CN reports rate it as slightly better in most ways with regard to the 13mm Ethos (sharpness, immersiveness, contrast, eye relief). With its EiC lens, you get a 10mm as well.

Time to convert the basement/garage into a woodworking shop, I guess. Totally weather independent hobby. 😉 I didn't take up astronomy until I moved from New York to Texas. I lived with 30 miles of New England's western edge. They don't call in NEW England for nothing. The weather is pretty similar, if a bit snowier. Astronomy was never much of an option there due to the weather and both air and light pollution. 🌧️

I'll go back this fall/winter and have another look at the 14mm Morpheus in several different telescopes. I'll try them out in my new to me 90mm TS APO as well. I have a TSFLAT2 dedicated to it as with the 72ED. I'll even rotate my head around to make sure it's not my eyeglass prescription causing it. Sometime over the last couple of years, I distinctly remember going back and forth between the Pentax XL and the Morpheus to determine which would be in the A-Team case. Even in my field flattened 72ED, there was curvature in the Morpheus and slight astigmatism (racked on both sides to confirm tangential/radial swap at best focus) as compared to the XL which had stronger curvature but zero astigmatism, none, once refocused. In the end, I decided that the larger field and milder curvature of the Morpheus were preferable to the XL's stronger curvature yet perfect edges once refocused. I even increased the TSFLAT2 distance by attaching it to the end of the original diagonal nosepiece and pulling the eyepiece and 1.25" adapter upward out of the diagonal to vastly increase the flattener's working distance to over-correct the scope's field curvature. The Pentax XL eventually was perfectly flat and corrected across the field. It was magnificent. It's a shame Pentax didn't add a dedicated field flattener somewhere in the design to achieve this same result. Lest you think the scope was causing the curvature, my 17mm ES-92 wasn't showing any curvature, nor was my 10mm Delos or 9mm Morpheus. I can't recall if the 12mm ES-92 showed any curvature or merely a tiny bit of edge astigmatism. I do distinctly remember that the 12mm is slightly disappointing compared to the 17mm.

Eye relief is the fixed distance behind/above the eyepiece's eye lens where the image forms. All the rays should converge to a fairly tight circle/point at that distance. You need to put the lens of your eye at that distance to take in the image. Adding a spacer ring merely pushes your eye back a bit.

Make that decreased eye relief with the supplied spacer ring. One came with my 9mm Morpheus. It's nothing more than an M43 spacer ring (think empty filter ring). It works the same as the Tele Vue eye cup extender, only it attaches differently. Actually a bit more complex than that. It's the top and bottom of the upper/outer barrel of the eyepiece. The lowest part of the eyepiece that resides in the focuser plays no part in the adjustment. Thus, it is a two handed operation compared to what can be a single handed operation for the Pentax XW as you stated.

To revisit the difficulty of capturing field curvature with a small camera lens, here's an extreme example of the camera lens's ability to flatten an otherwise very curved field. The 30mm WideScan clone below (Agena UWA second from right/bottom) has vast amounts of field curvature. So much so that most folks describe it as entering light/warp speed. But, it looks pretty good here, having only mild astigmatism:

I've measured the 14mm Pentax XL and Morpheus to both have 18mm of usable eye relief. My 7mm and 3.5mm Pentax XWs also have a measured 18mm of usable eye relief. My 10mm Delos has 21mm of measured, usable eye relief.

You're not going to be able to see field curvature in these images because the camera's lens has more than enough depth of focus to bring all of the field into focus. Unsharpness at the edge is mostly due to astigmatism in these images. Most scopes that I am aware have a field curvature that accentuates the field curvature in the 14mm and 20mm Pentax eyepieces. The Edge HD would do best with flat field eyepieces as you suggest. The Morpheus will still look flatter of field than the XL/XW eyepieces, but not as flat as the Delos.

The 14mm Morpheus has very slight field curvature and astigmatism in the outer 15% of the field, so pretty easy to ignore. The 14mm Pentax XL (XW predecessor) is sharp to the edge once refocused, but has noticeable field curvature. However, I didn't notice it until I got presbyopia and had to start wearing bifocals. So, as far as field curvature goes, it depends on your eyes' focus accommodation ability. Young eyes will probably be fine with the Pentax XW, but not so much with older eyes. I replaced my Pentax XL with the Morpheus. Also, 78 degrees vs 65 degrees is an enormous difference. However, I still think the Pentax XL is very slightly sharper overall. Contrast and stray light control is about the same. I've never looked through a 14mm Delos, but the 10mm Delos I do own is spectacularly sharp and flat of field. The 14mm Delos focus a fair bit below its shoulder, so be aware of this if you have limited focuser in-travel. I would probably recommend the Morpheus of the three. Here's my images through eyepieces at around 14mm for reference:

I'm paying $0.76/gallon in state and federal gas taxes here in Texas. That does indeed work out to 48% tax at $1.59/gallon for gas. Hidden taxes. 🙄

Hopefully you'll have clear skies, so you can report back here on its performance. I wonder how it would stack up against my 10mm Delos.

You could just get a RDF/finder shoe set for cheap off ebay and replace the ES/Bresser shoe with a Synta/Vixen shoe at the same time. Synta/Vixen finder accessories are more plentiful and cheaper.

Aside from the 1973 OPEC created oil crisis? No, none here in the states for the last 47 years. I had to look up what happened repeatedly in the UK vis-a-vis oil shortages. The last time truckers blockaded shipments here was indeed during 1973/1974 over the high oil prices and 55 MPH speed limit that hit their bottom lines hard. Every time there's a hurricane coming out of the Gulf, local gas prices and hotel prices spike to about six times their normal prices. However, it's pretty easy to report them to their respective state's attorney general for prosecution for violating scalping laws during a state of emergency. All you have to do is take a picture of the charges with your phone and send it to the AG's office with the location details. Texas in particular comes down hard and swiftly on offenders.

Some guys in Kentucky were arrested back in April for buying up all the hand sanitizer in Kentucky in early March. They had somewhere around 20,000 bottles of it bought from dollar stores and other places. They were trying to sell them for $10 or more a bottle on Amazon, ebay, Facebook marketplace, etc. People were buying them during the panic even at that price. What got them arrested was that those bottles were deemed essential items during a declared emergency. My point is, if you can convince the authorities that astronomy gear is an essential item during this emergency, you could then get them arrested for price gouging.😉

One of the rarest since that focal length was dropped for the NLV and SLV lines. Double check that it doesn't have a 45 degree field of view. 9mm was the lowest focal length with a 50 degree view to the best of my recollection.

Answer: (c) for me at least. I have 8 eyepiece cases at last count: A-team, B-team, binoviewer setup, Z-team, big oddball eyepieces, camping case, HD-60 case, Paradigm (Starguider) case.

The pistol grip style tripod heads get recommended a lot for binocular usage on either monopods or tripods:

I injured my 52 year old shoulder a couple of years ago in a work fall, and it is still not 100%, so you're not alone. Give it another year or two, it does get a bit better each year. My 34 year old back was injured in an auto accident 20 years ago, and it never recovered to 100%. I had to quit using my 15" Dob as a result of that one. As Bill Clinton said in 1992, "I feel your pain".

With a Barlow/GPC/OCS/OCA, you can reach focus even in a Newtonian with a binoviewer. I'd start with an entry level binoviewer and see if the GPC(s) it ships with work for your setup. The ones that came with my Arcturus unit were terrible, so I found a vintage Meade 140 APO 2x Barlow based on online recommendations. The nose piece with the optics is threaded such that it can be screwed onto the end of the binoviewer nose piece just like a filter. It yields 3x in this usage. Thus, 15mm to 26mm eyepieces work well for planetary work. I also tried a recently acquired Parks Gold Series 2x Barlow (same as Celestron Ultima and Orion Shorty-Plus), and it worked just as well by inserting the binoviewer directly into it.

That, and it's in stock. I'd jump on it ASAP if you want it for Christmas! Most dealers don't realistically expect new stock until February 2021.

I found I was getting the most detail on the planets this year using my binoviewers with a pair of microscope eyepieces and a Meade 140 Barlow nose piece. The planets were so bright that I couldn't really see good details without having to filter them down. This was completely unnecessary with two eyes viewing at once. That, and my brain was able to pick out finer details using two eyes, especially if I bumped my scope and allowed my brain's motion detection circuitry to kick in while it settled.